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Judge says Education Dept partisan out-of-office emails violated First Amendment

(www.npr.org)
135 points toomanyrichies | 1 comments | 09 Nov 25 01:03 UTC | HN request time: 0.199s | source
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SilverElfin ◴[09 Nov 25 02:35 UTC] No.45862395[source]▶
I find partisan messaging on government sites to be sleazy. But also I don’t understand how this is a violation of government employees’ rights. When people are employees of the government, they don’t have rights to use the resources of their job as if they own the same resources as a private citizen. Their speech is restricted to some degree as part of doing their job, and they are employed to do their agency’s bidding. How is their private right to free speech violated here?
replies(2): >>45862431 #>>45862453 #
1. apical_dendrite ◴[09 Nov 25 02:44 UTC] No.45862431[source]▶
This is not a case where the government is telling employees that they cannot say certain things while on the job. That would be reasonable (see the Hatch Act, for instance, which the Trump administration violates constantly). It is compelled speech. They are sending out a message from that person without that person's knowledge or consent. The first amendment prohibits the government from forcing someone to say something that they do not want to say. That is true even for government employees (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME)